The Evangelical-Catholic commission of the dioceses of Paderborn and Münster, the Evangelical Church of Westphalia and the Church of Lippe approved and signed a document for the twinning of parishes at a ceremony in Iserlohn on 28 November. The new directives pledge the signatories to closer ecumenical union, namely, the archbishop of Paderborn, Hans-Josef Becker, the bishop of Münster, Reinhard Lettman, the head of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia, Alfred Buß, and the superintendent of the Land Martin Dutzmann. In welcoming the approval of the directives, Bishop Becker said it was “the result of a solid development. Now each of us, in his own field of responsibility, has reliable guidelines”. Thanks to the directives, what has long been standard practice will now be accompanied by a further deepening of ecumenical relations. The initiatives recommended by the directives include regular ecumenical celebrations, ecumenical biblical colloquia and binding accords on questions relating to local authorities, schools, kindergartens and hospitals. The text represents a practical embodiment of the Charta Oecumenica, signed during the Ecumenical Kirchentag at Berlin in 2003.
